December Blues

1986

Ever since I became a mom, December has been a challenging month for me. Maybe not so much in those early days when the kids were very young and our world was very small. But once Ben started school and our little world started to expand, December ramped up with everything that makes the holiday season the holiday season: piano open classes, chorus and band concerts, church plays, friend parties, family visits, present buying, and cookie baking. Added to all of that, for me, was always end-of-the-semester paper reading and grading. There were some years that were extra tough: the year we discovered our middle son’s Christmas tree allergy when he broke out in hives and spent the holidays in an oatmeal bath, the year our furnace broke and the kids were sick, the year my dad died. As the kids grew older and headed off to college, holiday piano classes and high school concerts disappeared from our schedules, but we still drove to college events and games and geared up for having the kids home not just for Christmas but for winter break, so those Decembers were still bubbling with activity and challenging in new ways. 

We are in a new season now, and this is feeling like the most challenging December of all. The kids have grown up. They have their own lives, their own homes, their own friends, and the beginnings of their own traditions. I suppose the change has been occurring subtly over the past couple of years. Our middle son, who is not a teacher and doesn’t have a long break to stretch out into, hasn’t arrived until Christmas Day the past couple of years—he and his girl spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with her family. But our oldest lives in town, and up until last year, our youngest, who went from college to grad school to her first year of teaching, still spent a good bit of her Christmas break at home with us, so things felt a lot like they always had. But this year our girl is married. She and her husband are trying to juggle visits with both families along with her husband-the-coach’s basketball practice and game schedule. As a result, they’ll be home for about thirty-six hours this year. Our middle son and his girl will be here even less time over Christmas (but will be back for New Year’s). And I’m struggling in my attempt to adjust to it all. 

Although we got the tree the day after Thanksgiving (with the kids), and I decorated it and the house over the next few days, and although along with grading papers, I’ve been busily planning meals, buying groceries, wrapping presents, and baking cookies, I haven’t been feeling all that merry this year. Oh, I’ve listened to Christmas music and even watched a couple of Christmas movies, but my eyes and heart have really only been focused on the little window of time that all the kids will be here—I’ve just been waiting. I know, I know, the Christmas season, Advent, has always been about waiting, watching, anticipating, hoping. And I love that—the way the world prepares and almost holds its breath as it approaches Christmas Eve. But what I’ve been doing is different. I’ve been holding back, saving everything (the candles, the cookies, the celebrating) until the kids get here, and I've been fretting about how short the time together will be. I know why: from December '86, when we put infant Ben in his Christmas stocking, until December '16, the first time in thirty years that I’m not going to be filling Christmas stockings, December has been all about them, the kids. But what I’m slowly realizing is that now, somehow, it has to start being about us, my husband and me. We have to forge new traditions for the two of us, find new ways of celebrating the season. To aim all of our Christmas energy on the few hours the kids will be home isn’t fair to them or to us. The time they are home will always be my favorite part, but I need to learn to spread Christmas out in my mind and heart. I need to stop waiting and start enjoying December. I need to go ahead and light the candles, eat the cookies,  and drink the Christmas tea. Then Christmas with the kids can just be whatever it is in any given year, a week-long party or a few precious hours together. It doesn’t need to carry all the weight of my hopes and dreams and expectations. It can just be merry.

2015

Christmas Is Coming

Maybe it started with the candy strings: strips of green felt with twenty-four pieces of candy tied on with red yarn.  Beginning December first, my sister and brothers and I untied a candy cane or red gumdrop or Hershey Kiss every night after dinner, as we counted down the days to Christmas. Or maybe it was the way my mom read one chapter of The Adventures of Santa Claus every night in December and helped us memorize Luke 2, verse by verse.  Or maybe it was her approach to decorating for Christmas--every day while we were at school, she would choose one thing from the big cardboard Christmas box to put up while we were at school; we'd come home to find the manger scene on the coffee table, a cardboard Santa face on the fridge, jingle bells on the door, or the lantern candle in the middle of the dining room table.  Whatever the reason, for as long as I can remember, I have liked the anticipation of Christmas as much as or maybe even more than Christmas Day itself.  When I was a kid, I pored over the Sears Wish Book during the long, slow early days of December, carefully circling the toys I wanted most.  Like most kids, I had trouble sleeping on Christmas eve and loved those pre-dawn hours of Christmas morning before it all began.  I shivered in anticipation as I peeked down the hallway and spied my lumpy red knee sock pinned to the fireplace screen in the shadowy darkness.  When I grew up and had kids of my own, December days were anything but long and slow.  It seemed as though every minute was crammed full of shopping and baking, teaching and grading, piano classes and church play practices, concerts and ball games.  Instead of counting down the days to Christmas, I was racing the clock trying to finish everything in time. By the time my kids reached the jingle bells on the ends of their candy strings, I was usually out of breath and low on energy.  But even amidst all the hustle and bustle, a little refrain played over and over in my head: Christmas is coming, Christmas is coming! And every year Christmas eve would cast its spell on me--I'd be just as caught up in the wonder and magic of it as I'd been when I was ten. It felt like the whole world was holding its breath, waiting, anticipating, hoping.  When my kids left for college one by one, the pace started to slow down a bit.  Suddenly, I found myself counting down the days again.  This year, it'll be December 22nd before all their cars pile up in the driveway.  Only on the 24th will all three kids be sleeping in their old beds upstairs.  I'll be the last one up, filling stockings and setting the table for Christmas brunch.  As I'm turning off the Christmas lights, I'll pause for a moment before our manger scene, lit from behind by a single electric candle, and once again I'll feel the magic of Christmas, the promise of what is to come, the thrill of hope.

A Few of My Favorite Things

Four of the original six ornaments we got as wedding gifts

When Steve and I got ready to decorate our first little Christmas tree in our first little apartment thirty years ago, we had six sweet ornaments we had gotten as wedding gifts, as well as a few stray ornaments Steve had snagged from his parents' collection.  Our tree was pretty sparse for the first few years of our marriage.  But a year or two after our second son was born, I started a tradition of buying each of the kids a Christmas ornament each year.  The idea was that when they eventually left home, they would have more than six ornaments to decorate their first tree.  In the meantime, their ornaments filled in the spaces on our family Christmas tree.  As their collections grew, so did the size of our tree.  Steve and I accumulated more ornaments of our own over the years, too, but but most of the decorations on our tree are from the kids' collections.  Every year, they each put up their own ornaments first, fighting over prime tree space.  A few years ago as our kids were getting older and closer to having their own trees, I discovered a flaw in my plan:  I had grown attached to the ornaments I bought for the kids--each one reminds me of the child I bought it for and the year I found it.  And I've gotten quite used to having them on our tree year after year.   Last night on the way home from Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania, we were making plans to chop down our Christmas tree this weekend, since the three kids won't all be home again until the weekend before Christmas.  My oldest child, Ben, has an apartment with room for a tree this year, so as we were talking about decorating our family tree, Ben casually mentioned that he would be needing to take his box of ornaments to his own house this year.   I know he's right.  I know it's time.  I know that was the plan all along.  But it's going to be very strange not to see his ornaments nestled in among the others on our tree this year.  And how long will it be before all the kids' ornaments have disappeared from our tree?  At least we still have Rocking Horse,  Christmas Broom, Thimblehead, and Sleeping Mouse!

Some of my favorites from Ben's collection